Church Planting – Providence, RI

This year we are blessed to be able to announce that we will be sending Tim & Britt Moroz as well as a team to Providence, Rhode Island to plant the next GCC Church Plant. Tim & Britt have been a part of GCC for over four years and have been involved in various volunteer roles until 2015 when Tim started our Church Planting Residency program.

FAQ:

Why did we choose Providence?

When will Gospel Community Providence launch?

What does it look like to partner with Gospel Community Providence?

Why did we choose Providence?

Statistically speaking, Providence, RI is the fifth most Post-Christian city in America with over 60% of its population being post-christian (Barna, 2015). According to Barna, Providence also ranked as the third least Bible-minded city in America with less than 12% of its population qualifying as Bible-minded.

With over 600,000 people living in a 6-mile radius, this results in over 360,000 people in the post-christian category and less than 70,000 qualifying as Bible-minded. This means that as a region that was once saturated with the gospel, Providence has moved past its Christian roots and is steadily secularizing more and more.

As we examined the Northeast and prayed over which city to choose, we gravitated towards medium sized cities with a high population and an obvious need. Furthermore we examined each city for how well we felt we would fit in that city, and whether or not we could see ourselves living there for the next 10-30 years. We kept asking ourselves the question, “Would we want to live here even if we were not planting a church.” We want to love our city and make disciples where we live not just show up for a couple of years and “bear through it” before giving up and going home.

When will Gospel Community Providence launch?

The team will be moving to Providence sometime around the fall of 2017. This gives us plenty of time to prepare, build our team, identify partners, and raise support. Once on the ground the work begins. The initial goal is to gather as a Gospel Community group for a season while we establish ourselves in the city and build relationships. Eventually we will multiply this Gospel Community and launch a public Sunday gathering.

Residency – After completing seminary I stepped into a 2 year residency with Gospel Community Church in order to get practical experience, receive coaching, go through ordination, undergo assessment, and get assistance with all things pertaining pre-launch.

Choose City – We went through a season of praying over various regions, selected several states we wanted to focus in on, identified four cities we wanted to take a closer look at, visited and prayed over all four cities, narrowed down to two cities, prayed over both cities and sought wisdom, and visited Providence a second time with a few elders and a team for confirmation.

Build a Team – Our goal is to have 15-30 team members come with us. We are looking for a diverse team of people from various occupations, ages, life stages, ethnicities, etc. As of April 2016 we have 7 people on our team.

Ordination – We started assembling our Ordination Council in the Spring of 2016 and will begin the official ordination process soon.

Assessment – We are currently researching which organization we will do our assessment through and will begin that process once that’s decided.

Raise Support – While we have yet to identify exactly how much support we will need to raise in order to best set up for success, we have opened up our donation portal for supporters to begin donating. All current donations are going to cover things like trips to Providence and administrative needs (printing, postage, etc.).

Move – Currently our target is to be on the ground in Providence no later than Fall of 2017. Once on the ground we will begin the process of finding jobs, building inroads, and developing relationships.

Establish – Our first step is to establish ourselves in our community, get jobs, homes, and get familiarized with our new city.

Develop – Our second step is to develop relationships, make disciples, and train leaders as detailed above. In reality this begins day one and never stops since this is the true reason why we’re moving to Providence in the first place.

Gather as GC – Our next step is to gather as a Gospel Community and begin the process of being the church in the city of Providence. There is a sense in which this will begin from day one but with the transition happening at different times for different people it makes sense to start gathering once a few folks have moved up.

Identify – Next we will begin to intentionally identify various needs around our neighborhoods and communities in order to be able to step in and start meeting some of those needs. During this time we will also continue to seek out partners to work together with.

Multiply GC – This next step is really determined by the health and growth of our Gospel Communities. Multiplication is, in a sense, something that can be planned for but, in another sense, something that is truly up to the Lord and His timing.

Launch – Launching our Sunday Gathering is not something we plan on doing until step six mainly because we believe that the purpose of the Sunday Gathering is to gather the Gospel Communities that no longer have an opportunity to live out everyday life together because they have multiplied. When there is more than one Gospel Community, it makes sense to have a Sunday Gathering.

Multiply Sunday Gathering – It is our heartbeat that as our Gospel Communities multiply, we also multiply our Sunday Gathering. We long to be a church that sends people out to create new congregations throughout the city of Providence. Instead of focusing on a large Sunday attendance, we want to be a family of neighborhood churches.

Plant – Finally, we long to be a church-planting church. As the Lord gives us opportunities, we will send out leaders to plant churches.

What does it look like to partner with Gospel Community Providence?

As we continue to prepare we are looking for a number of different kinds of partners:

We would love to have you partner with us and we would be incredibly encouraged if you helped multiply your partnership by identifying at least one more person who you think would be passionate about helping plant a church in Providence. We would love to have you either share our vision with them or connect them with us so we could share our hearts.